For most of her career, she went undercover, wearing men’s clothing every day and pretending to be a man. When she finally told her boss that she was in fact a woman and would like to start wearing work-appropriate women’s clothing, she was fired.

In 29 states, there are no protections against workplace discrimination of this sort for transgender people like me. If I lived in Michigan like Aimee, my employer could fire me at will, just because I’m transgender. (In fact, I could also be denied housing, credit, or public accommodations.)

Facing this injustice, Aimee Stephens sued. Her case against her employer has now made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

The court will decide whether firing someone because they’re transgender constitutes discrimination “on the basis of sex,” which would be illegal under the Civil Rights Act. If they rule in favor of Stephens, transgender Americans would finally be afforded the same protections that everyone else has as a right.

The Trump administration has argued that the Civil Rights Act doesn’t protect people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. But advocates have countered that it does apply, since discrimination along these lines punishes people who defy stereotypes attached to their assigned sex.

Against this backdrop, housing and employment discrimination are an added devastation — and in all likelihood part of the reason these numbers are so high in the first place.

So it’s no exaggeration to say the Supreme Court’s ruling will have a drastic material impact on the millions of transgender people living in the United States. Allowing this discrimination to continue will threaten many more with unemployment and economic hardship.

With the court’s current right-wing majority, that’s a real danger. But Congress could address it by explicitly legislating anti-discrimination protections — for the workplace, housing, credit, and everything else — for this vulnerable group.

In fact, the House of Representatives has already passed the Equality Act, which would clearly codify the inclusion of gay, lesbian, transgender, and non-binary people in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. However, the GOP-controlled Senate has refused to consider it.

Without this legislation, the rights of millions of Americans like me are at the mercy of this Supreme Court.

No matter how the court rules, it’s the responsibility of Congress to ensure that “freedom and justice for all” includes transgender Americans, too. We need laws to prevent people like Aimee Stephens from losing their livelihoods due to employer prejudice.

We’re supposed to be a free country. We’re supposed to be an equal country. It’s time to make it that way.

This article was originally published at Daily Kos on October 10, 2019. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Theo Wuest is a Next Leader at the Institute for Policy Studies. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

The New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP) released a new report Tuesday detailing systemic discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) people across the city.

Compared to the general New York City population, TGNC individuals are five times more likely to be unemployed, and among those with college degrees, more than four times more likely to be making less than $30,000 a year, the report found.

The report also outlines specific barriers TGNC people face while trying to find a job. Thirty-one percent reported experiencing discrimination before they even finished applying for jobs because they were asked what gender they were assigned at birth, a question employers are not legally allowed to ask. Others said they were asked for references from past employers who only knew them by their “dead name,” or the name they used before they transitioned.

Over half of respondents said they were forced to educate their coworkers about their identities, and a third reported being isolated by coworkers and receiving unwanted sexual comments. Many were overqualified for their jobs, while others said non-TGNC peers received higher salaries for the same work. A third of respondents said they were unable to use their health insurance to receive the gender affirming care they needed.

The New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP) released a new report Tuesday detailing systemic discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) people across the city.

Compared to the general New York City population, TGNC individuals are five times more likely to be unemployed, and among those with college degrees, more than four times more likely to be making less than $30,000 a year, the report found.

The report also outlines specific barriers TGNC people face while trying to find a job. Thirty-one percent reported experiencing discrimination before they even finished applying for jobs because they were asked what gender they were assigned at birth, a question employers are not legally allowed to ask. Others said they were asked for references from past employers who only knew them by their “dead name,” or the name they used before they transitioned.

Over half of respondents said they were forced to educate their coworkers about their identities, and a third reported being isolated by coworkers and receiving unwanted sexual comments. Many were overqualified for their jobs, while others said non-TGNC peers received higher salaries for the same work. A third of respondents said they were unable to use their health insurance to receive the gender affirming care they needed.

Renata Ramos, a 57-year-old transfeminine Latina immigrant, claimed she lost a catering job when she transitioned because the business owner was allegedly concerned about “how their customers would react.” She claimed she was repeatedly told by employers such Trader Joe’s and a local dollar store that there were no open positions for which she could apply.

ThinkProgress has reached out to Trader Joe’s for comment on the allegation.

Lolan Sevilla, an AVP training coordinator and co-author of the report, told ThinkProgress that for many TGNC individuals, instances of discrimination were often compounded by their race. “For example, there was a significant disparity between trans and gender non-conforming people of color and white respondents on education, employment, and income,” they said, noting TGNC people of color with bachelor’s degrees were nearly four times more likely than to their white counterparts to make less than $10,000 a year.

“In order for us to have true economic justice for trans and gender non-conforming people, these issues must be looked at, and addressed, holistically with a framework that includes other identities held like race, disability, and immigration status,” Sevilla said.

New York City protects against employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression, and has even issued guidance specifying that those protections apply to issues like correct name and pronoun usage in the workplace. The report recommended the city take things one step further and create educational opportunities and employment programs to help TGNC individuals overcome inequities they still face while attempting to enter the workforce.

It’s often impossible for TGNC individuals to know whether they are being treated differently, as many are simply unaware of the favorable treatment afforded to their non-TGNC peers. The report therefore recommends screening employers to ensure they are welcoming of TGNC employees through methods like resume testing.

The Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights conducted one such test in 2015, sending various fake resumes to different employers, some with indications that the invented job candidate was transgender. In nearly half of the tests, employers favored a less-qualified cisgender candidate over a more qualified transgender candidate. As a result, the office was able to take enforcement actions against several of these employers for violating nondiscrimination laws, even though no real-life transgender people experienced discrimination.

New York City has used a similar process for identifying anti-transgender discrimination at substance abuse centers.

Chanel Lopez, Transgender Communities Liaison at the NYC Commission on Human Rights, emphasized the importance of such work and the need to continue pushing for more transparency in a statement Tuesday. “As we know all too well at the NYC Commission on Human Rights, TGNC individuals endure a range of discrimination and harassment in their daily lives, including in the workplace,” she said. “This is simply unacceptable.”

This article was originally published at ThinkProgress on December 12, 2018. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Zack Ford is the LGBTQ Editor at ThinkProgress.org, where he has covered issues related to marriage equality, transgender rights, education, and “religious freedom,” in additional to daily political news. In 2014, The Advocate named Zack one of its “40 under 40” in LGBT media, describing him as “one of the most influential journalists online.”

President Donald Trump signed a long-awaited directive Friday evening that bans transgender people from enlisting in the U.S. military and bans the Department of Defense from providing military treatment to current transgender service members. The directive follows an announcement Trump made on Twitter last month, blindsiding the defense secretary and the public more broadly — and like last time, there Trump was met with a wave of backlash.

A draft of this memorandum was reported on Wednesday, and there has been widespread criticism from trans activists, lawmakers, and current and former members of the military over the last few days.

“When I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter after I was shot down, I didn’t care if the American troops risking their lives to save me were gay, straight, transgender, black, white, or brown,” Sen. Tammy Duckwork (D-IL) said in a statement on Wednesday.

“It would be a step in the wrong direction to force currently serving transgender individuals to leave the military solely on the basis of their gender identity rather than medical and readiness standards that should always be at the heart of Department of Defense personnel policy,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) also said in a statement on Wednesday. “The Pentagon’s ongoing study on this issue should be completed before any decisions are made with regard to accession. The Senate Armed Services Committee will continue to conduct oversight on this important issue.”

Chase Strangio, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), shared an essay from his brother on the ban. “This is not about politics,” he wrote. “This is not about military readiness or cost. This is a calculated decision to discriminate against an already vulnerable group of people, one that will have devastating effects for countless Americans.”

Chelsea Manning, perhaps the military’s most famous trans service member, said Trump was “normalizing hate” and questioned its timing.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will have wide discretion on whether transgender service members can continue to serve, and he has six months to develop a plan to implement Trump’s memorandum.

As ThinkProgress reported last month, Trump’s decision to ban transgender service members from the military was about electoral politics, using transgender people as pawns after congressional infighting over funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The military currently spends ten times more on erectile dysfunction as it would on transgender medical care.

This article was originally published at ThinkProgress on August 26, 2017. Reprinted with permission.

About the Authors: Amanda Michelle Gomez is a health policy reporter at ThinkProgress. Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani is a Senior Editor at ThinkProgress. Before joining the team at ThinkProgress, she served as an editor at Muftah Magazine and worked in the Iranian American community. Varkiani received her master of science in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and her bachelor’s degree in international studies from American University in Washington, D.C.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis sent some mixed messages Monday when he stopped by the Pentagon newsroom to discuss President Trump’s intended ban on transgender personnel in the military—which the president announced via Twitter. At best, the proposal remains in limbo and is still being studied; at worst, it’s inevitably still coming.

The key takeaway Mattis revealed is that Trump has yet to actually issue anything other than a few tweets and public comments. “I am waiting right now to get the President’s guidance in and that I expect to be very soon,” he explained.

In the meantime, the military is continuing to study the issue, consistent with what Mattis announced when he agreed to delay the implementation of transgender recruitment by six months. The change to recruitment policy was initially set to take place July 1.”The policy is going to address whether or not transgenders [sic] can serve under what conditions, what medical support they require, how much time would they be perhaps non-deployable leaving others to pick up their share of everything,” Mattis said. “There’s a host of issues and I’m learning more about this than I ever thought I would and it’s obviously very complex to include the privacy issues which we respect.” The reference to “privacy” is not a good sign: it’s a talking point deployed by opponents of transgender equality.

Mattis seemed dismissive of the research that had already been done before his predecessor, Ash Carter, announced last summer that the ban on trans military service would be lifted—including a massive study by the RAND Corporation, one of the most respected military think tanks. “I’m not willing to sign up for the [Rand Corp.] numbers you just used, and I’m not willing to sign up for the concern any of [the transgender service members] have,” the secretary said. “And I’m not willing to prejudge what the study will now bring out.”

Mattis also noted that the decision has been impacted by the lack of political appointees overseeing personnel issues at the Pentagon. He wants to “get them in to be able to answer those questions” before the ban is implemented.

The secretary stood by comments made by General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who said that nothing would change until Trump actually issued guidance, and “in the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect.” Mattis also said that his people were advising the White House, “but they write their own policy, of course.”

Besides his tweets, the only other comment Trump has made was at a press gaggle last week when he said that he’s doing the military “a great favor” by just implementing the ban and avoiding a “very complicated” and “very confusing” issue.

Asked about the haphazard way Trump announced the policy, Mattis defended the president. “You all elected—the American people elected—the commander-in-chief,” he said. “They didn’t elect me. So the commander-in-chief in our country, in our system of government, is elected by the people, and he has that authority and responsibility.”

This article originally appeared at ThinkProgress on August 15, 2017. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Zack Ford is the LGBTQ Editor at ThinkProgress.org, where he has covered issues related to marriage equality, transgender rights, education, and “religious freedom,” in additional to daily political news. In 2014, The Advocate named Zack one of its “40 under 40” in LGBT media, describing him as “one of the most influential journalists online.” He has a passion for education, having received a Bachelor’s in Music Education at Ithaca College and a Master’s in Higher Education at Iowa State University, and he relishes opportunities to return to classroom settings to discuss social justice issues with students.

On Wednesday evening, the Department of Justice moved to undermine rights for LGBTQ people to ensure they are treated fairly in the workplace. The department filed a brief arguing that prohibition of sex discrimination under federal law does not include the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The federal law in question is Title VII, which is part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.

The case before the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Zarda v. Altitude Express, centers on a now deceased skydiver. In 2010, Zarda said he was fired because of his sexual orientation. In April, the Second Circuit decided that it would not accept the argument that discrimination on sexual orientation isn’t permitted under Title VII. However, Lambda Legal requested that the ruling be reconsidered, which is why the Justice Department planned to file its amicus brief.

The power of the federal government to influence LGBTQ workplace rights can’t be underestimated, said Sharita Gruberg, associate director of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress. ThinkProgress is an editorially independent news site housed in the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

“It is the Justice Department of the U.S. It’s not just anyone, so it’s definitely going to have a lot of weight because it is the position of the U.S. government, so it will be interesting to see how Second Circuit takes those arguments,” Gruberg said.

The role of Title VII in protecting lesbian, bisexual, and gay people against discrimination has been fuzzier than the issue of whether it can protect transgender people from discrimination. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recognized that Title VII protects transgender people from discrimination in 2012. In 2015, the agency also held that Title VII covers claims of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. But court decisions on sexual orientation protections have been mixed.

The strongest decision for the recognition of sexual orientation discrimination under Title VII was in Hively v. Ivy Community College, in which the Seventh Circuit held that sexual orientation was covered under sex discrimination in Title VII for three reasons. In that ruling, Chief Judge Diane Wood referenced Price Waterhouse V. Hopkins, a case that is commonly used to support sexual orientation as protected through Title VII by arguing that says sex discrimination includes sex stereotyping. If a stereotypical woman is considered to be heterosexual, then dating women is a failure to conform. Looking at it another way, if a woman were a man dating a woman she would not face discrimination; therefore she is facing discrimination because she is a woman. And yet another way to consider discrimination would to look at the matter of association. The Loving v. Virginia case found that discrimination based on association with someone of a different race is discrimination on the basis of race. In the case of sexual orientation, Wood used this “associational theory” to say that a refusal to promote someone based on their association with someone of the same sex qualifies as sex discrimination.

Gruberg said that with conflicting decisions from the courts, including a March 11th Circuit ruling that Title VII does not cover sexual orientation, and statements from judges such as Chief Judge Robert Katzmann of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is likely covered under Title VII, the issue could come before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“There has been an indication last time they considered this, where Chief Katzmann noted that this is still a developing issue in courts and he felt that court should reexamine whether sex orientation discrimination is covered under Title VII, so it has been mixed,” Gruberg said. “We’re already at a circuit split so it’s something I am convinced is going to be in front of the Supreme Court soon.”

In the brief, the Justice Department noted in Hively, Judge Diane Sykes said sex as “common, ordinary usage in 1964” means “biologically male or female.” Gruberg, who commented before the brief was released, said it would not make sense for the department to address gender identity, given the courts’ past rulings.

“Courts have been much more willing to see that gender identity discrimination is straight up sex discrimination. That has not really been a question. Sexual orientation is a little bit [of a question], so it is shocking that DOJ would bring that [gender identity] up,” Gruberg said. “That is not as contested in federal courts and yet they are bringing it up as an assault on the idea that trans people have civil rights protections.”

Gruberg said that the department will likely take the most prevalent argument against including sexual orientation and say that the statute doesn’t explicitly mention sexual orientation.

“But it doesn’t say sex stereotyping either, and the courts ruled on that, and it doesn’t mention sexual harassment but we now see harassment as covered,” Gruberg said. “What it means under Title VII has been understood as far more broad than what Congress in 60s believed it meant… It is a willful disregard of the evolving definition of sex discrimination.”]

This article was originally published at ThinkProgress on July 26, 2017. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Casey Quinlan is a policy reporter at ThinkProgress.

A transgender woman is suing McDonald’s and the owner of the franchised restaurant she worked for after allegedly experiencing sexual harassment and discrimination.

La’Ray Reed said a coworker asked if she were a “boy or girl,” “top or bottom,” or what her “role” was “in the bedroom.” She said she was groped and spied on while using the public toilet.

But for Reed to hold McDonald’s responsible for her alleged mistreatment, her lawyers have to prove that McDonald’s should be held responsible as a joint employer—not just the owners of the franchised restaurant. There is a question of whether the Labor Department’s recent decision to rescind the standard for determining who is a joint employer will hinder her ability to seek justice. The Obama administration’s standard went beyond simply looking at who sets wages and hires people, and considered a worker’s “economic dependency” on the business.

McDonald’s has resisted this legal responsibility for many years, and says it does not have control over things like pay and working conditions at franchised restaurants. In 2016, McDonald’s settled a wage-theft class action through a $3.75 million payment that allowed it to dodge responsibility. McDonald’s released a statement that said it “reconfirms that it is not the employer of or responsible for employees of its independent franchisees.”

Industry groups have been pushing against efforts to call businesses like McDonald’s joint employers for many years now. In 2015, Matt Haller, a lobbyist at the International Franchise Association called a 2015 National Labor Relations Board ruling on whether a recycling company could be called a joint employer, “a knife-to-the throat issue for the franchise model.” He told the Washington Post, “You’d be hard pressed to find a business that shouldn’t be concerned about the impact of this joint employer standard.” Haller said IFA was “pleased” at the department’s decision to rescind guidance this month.

But there is certainly hope for La’Ray Reed, and other workers like her who are experiencing discrimination or issues such as wage theft at work. Since the joint employer guidance does not have the full force of law, it is not as important to these cases as existing tests for determining if an employer relationship exists. Under the economic realities test, applied under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Labor Standards Act, among other laws, a relationship exists if someone is economically dependent on that business. Paul Secunda, professor of law at Marquette University, who teaches on employment discrimination law, said this test will play a much bigger role in determining whether an employee can hold McDonald’s responsible for discrimination.

“Just the Trump administration withdrawing this guidance does not mean in any way that these claims are doomed to failure or are otherwise are not plausible,” Secunda said. “Because what matters the most with employment law is focusing on employment discrimination under Title VII and what other state laws apply there.”

‘This control standard is the standard that has been in place since the 1950s and ‘60s, and so it doesn’t make sense to have different standards under different laws. It only makes sense to hold liable those who control what happens in the workplace,” Secunda added.

Representatives of Fight for $15, a group of fast food workers, teachers, and adjunct professors advocating for better pay backed by the Service Employees International Union, said McDonald’s has failed to enforce its own policies.

“The growing number of allegations suggests a failure by McDonald’s to enforce the zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment outlined in its Operations and Training and Policies for Franchisees manuals,” the labor group told BuzzFeed.

“There are terms and conditions that are set by the national parent McDonald’s,” Secunda said. “It has a policy on sexual harassment and equal opportunity that all its franchisees have to meet: that it will not tolerate sexual harassment whether based on transgender status or otherwise in the workplace. [The argument is] that McDonald’s parent company exercises meaningful control—that is being free from sexual harassment and demeaning conduct in the workplace.”

None of this means that any parent corporation is responsible for any franchisees’ lability, Secunda said, since every case must be decided on its facts, but where employers do exercise meaningful control over employees, there should be a possibility that they will be held responsible.

The decision to rescind this joint-employer guidance will by no means kill any possibility of holding a corporation, such as McDonald’s, responsible, and a judge would be more likely to consider the rule of law first, Secunda said, but the joint employer guidance would still be a helpful resource for the defendant to have in its arsenal.

“If I were a conservative jurist who wanted it to come out on the corporate conservative side of the world, I see that they could use this. ‘You know they’re the expert agency, so they can’t be wrong,’” Secunda said. “But I just think that would be disingenuous, because the agency has obviously changed its position based on the politics on the administration. And this should be an answer that has nothing to do with politics. It should be based on rule of law.”

This blog was originally published at ThinkProgress on June 22, 2017. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Casey Quinlan is a journalist covering education, investments, politics, crime, and LGBT issues.

Texas’ anti-transgender bill has seemingly stalled, but inspired by North Carolina, Republican state lawmakers have a new plan to expand discrimination against LGBT people.

Last month, Texas seemed on track to follow in the footsteps of North Carolina’s HB2 and pass its own bill, SB6, mandating anti-transgender discrimination across the entire state. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) launched a massive misinformation campaign to scare up support of the bathroom bill, and the Senate passed it, terrifying the trans kids and families who testified against it. The bill was blocked in the House by various House Republican leaders who indicated they believed it was unnecessary.

But now, those House Republicans have introduced a new bill that looks awfully familiar.

Unlike the various complicated aspects of SB6, HB 2899 does only one thing: ban cities from passing nondiscrimination protections. To that end, it also would nullify any municipal nondiscrimination ordinances already in place.

This approach strongly resembles the “compromise” bill North Carolina lawmakers recently passed to replace HB2, which banned cities and school districts from passing any ordinance “regulating private employment practices or regulating public accommodations” until December 1, 2020.

These both, in turn, follow the example set by Tennessee and Arkansas—which have “preemption” laws that prohibit cities from protecting any class from discrimination that isn’t already protected under state law, which amounts to a de facto ban on LGBT protections. North Carolina’s law sloppily allows protections that already exist to remain in place, but Texas takes the approach a step further. By banning and nullifying all nondiscrimination ordinances, HB 2899 would prohibit cities from doing anything to address discrimination on the local level.

HB 2899 would effectively be a statewide license to discriminate against LGBT people. By regulating schools, it would also have severe consequences for LGBT students, who could not be protected from bullying. Trans students could not be guaranteed the right to use the restrooms and other facilities that match their gender identity.

Given the NCAA and NBA were convinced to abandon their boycotts of North Carolina over its replacement law, it seems likely that Texas lawmakers expect their new plan will similarly be safer from economic backlash. This is despite the fact that many cities and states are maintaining their bans on publicly-funded travel to North Carolina.

The Advocate has a piece by Catalina Velasquez, director of People For the American Way Foundation’s “Young People For” program, that explains why the recently passed transgender discrimination law in North Carolina hurts everyone, not just the direct targets of the legislation.

An excerpt:

The recent passage of House Bill 2, the North Carolina law that includes a provision preventing trans people from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity, has been met with an avalanche of protest. So far the conversation has largely centered on the devastating effect the law has on transgender North Carolinians—and rightfully so. Based on zero evidence, legislators framed trans people as predators, a smear that protects no one while harming many. One transgender woman in Greensboro, N.C., told PBS, “Being out in public now, I feel like I might have a target on me.”

A suicide prevention hotline serving transgender people reports that the number of calls has doubled since H.B. 2 became law. There’s no question that this shameful law targets trans people, and it’s impossible to overstate the harm of that dehumanization. But what has been largely missing from the discussion are the ways in which this is also about disability justice, about economic justice, about families and much more. Quite simply, this fight affects everyone.

This blog originally appeared at aflcio.org on June 10, 2016. Reprinted with permission.

Kenneth Quinnell: I am a long-time blogger, campaign staffer and political activist. Before joining the AFL-CIO in 2012, I worked as labor reporter for the blog Crooks and Liars. Previous experience includes Communications Director for the Darcy Burner for Congress Campaign and New Media Director for the Kendrick Meek for Senate Campaign, founding and serving as the primary author for the influential state blog Florida Progressive Coalition and more than 10 years as a college instructor teaching political science and American History. My writings have also appeared on Daily Kos, Alternet, the Guardian Online, Media Matters for America, Think Progress, Campaign for America’s Future and elsewhere. I am the proud father of three future progressive activists, an accomplished rapper and karaoke enthusiast.

Let’s be clear about North Carolina’s H.B. 2 and other “bathroom laws” popping up in states that would bar transgender people from using the restroom facility of their identified gender: We won’t stand for it.

This law even bars cities and municipalities from passing legislation on nondiscrimination, paid leave, fair scheduling and raising the minimum wage.

Jerame Davis, executive director of Pride At Work, said:

In states desperately in need of jobs and infrastructure, lawmakers are focused on legalizing discrimination and harassing people in restrooms. It’s just astounding. Pride at Work condemns these regressive laws as well as those in other states, including those that are still pending. We also call upon Congress to swiftly pass the Equality Act at the federal level in order to nullify the injustice of these attempts to circumvent progress for the LGBTQ community.

It’s crazy that at a time when our elected officials should be doing all they can to create jobs and get more people employed that they’re actually wasting taxpayer money to create a law that’s going to make it easier to discriminate and fire people. And, in the process, they’re driving business out of our state because these corporations don’t want to do business in a state that supports discrimination.

To put it simply, H.B. 2 and similar legislation mean more discrimination, weaker benefits, less safe workplaces and lower wages.

#WeAreNotThis

This blog was originally posted on aflcio.org on April 15, 2016. Reprinted with permission.

Liz Shuler was elected AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer in September 2009, the youngest person ever to become an officer of the AFL-CIO. Shuler previously was the highest-ranking woman in the Electrical Workers (IBEW) union, serving as the top assistant to the IBEW president since 2004. In 1993, she joined IBEW Local 125 in Portland, Ore., where she worked as an organizer and state legislative and political director. In 1998, she was part of the IBEW’s international staff in Washington, D.C., as a legislative and political representative.

Jessi Dye was excited about her new job at the Summerford Nursing Home in Alabama. Her experience watching her grandmother be put in a nursing home when she was younger made her want to help others who end up in the same situation. “She felt alone a lot of the time,” the 28-year-old said. “I wanted to be there for people, make it a little brighter place for these people who might not have somebody to visit them.”

She had also been working in fast food, but this job would come with better pay, better hours, and the possibility of fast advancement.

Yet she would only spend four hours actually doing her new job. After going through half a day of training, she says she was told to report to the manager’s office after lunch. “And the first thing the manager said to me when I stepped into his office is, ‘What are you?’” she said. “That’s not a question you ask me as a person, it’s a question you ask some little knickknack… It’s honestly not even a question for a pet.”

As a transgender woman, she had changed the photo on her driver’s license to match her gender expression, but her gender marker was wrong. That was what the manager was looking at as he asked her blunt questions about her gender. Getting a driver’s license updated can be difficult; more than 40 percent of transgender people across the country go without an ID that matches their gender identity, and 11 percent say they were denied in an attempt to update it. But having an ID that doesn’t reflect someone’s gender identity is correlated with much higher rates of discrimination and harassment.

“I can’t describe easily how that felt,” she said of that first question the manager asked her. “The closest thing I can say is that it felt like somebody punched me in the stomach.” She says that the manager not only told her he was letting her go just hours after she started, but that he confirmed it was because she is transgender.

“I walked out the door of the nursing home, said my goodbyes to the ladies I’d been working with, and made the hardest phone call of my life to my wife to say I couldn’t support us the way I’d planned on,” she said. “It was the worst feeling I’ve ever had.”

She has since received some good news: On Thursday, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented her in her lawsuit against Summerford, announced that the nursing home has agreed to pay her a financial settlement, as well as to implement a workplace nondiscrimination policy for sexual orientation and gender and to provide LGBT training for human resource employees, including the manager who fired Dye. A representative of the nursing home declined to comment on the settlement.

The policy change is the most important part for Dye. “That was more of a victory for me than any money could have ever been. Making sure the world’s a little bit safer for the next person who comes along,” she said. “I don’t want anybody to ever have to make that phone call I made that day.”

The loss of a job can be catastrophic, and losing her job at the nursing home was a blow for Dye and her wife. “Our financial stability was completely taken out from under us,” she said. She was able to rescind her two weeks notice at the fast food job, but her entire shift was laid off just a couple of months later. After that, she spent six months looking for work until she found the retail job she has now. “It’s hard to find a job in Alabama anyway, but one that’s openly accepting and easy to work with, not so much,” she noted.

The hope is also that such a case, which is likely the first of its kind won against a private Alabama employer, resonates beyond Dye. “There still seems to be a misperception among many employers that they can fire employees at will for any reason or no reason at all,” said Sam Wolfe, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “But there are federal protections against individuals because they are transgender, and we’re hopeful this lawsuit will raise awareness.”

Federal law doesn’t explicitly enumerate gender identity as a protected class against workplace discrimination. But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled that employer discrimination on that basis violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on sex. Just in April, it ruled that the Army illegally discriminated against a transgender civilian employee by forcing her to use a single bathroom. Yet just 19 states and Washington, D.C.have laws prohibiting employment discrimination that include gender identity. The Equality Act, introduced in Congress in July, would explicitly ban employment discrimination against all LGBT people, but has not yet been passed and doesn’t have any Republican sponsors.

This is part of what motivated Dye to take action in the first place. “It was never about money,” she said. “It was about doing what’s right, standing up and and letting it be known you can’t do this to people, you can’t treat people like objects.”

This blog originally appeared at ThinkProgress.org on September 11th, 2015. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Bryce Covert is the Economic Policy Editor for ThinkProgress. She was previously editor of the Roosevelt Institute’s Next New Deal blog and a senior communications officer. She is also a contributor for The Nation and was previously a contributor for ForbesWoman. Her writing has appeared on The New York Times, The New York Daily News, The Nation, The Atlantic, The American Prospect, and others. She is also a board member of WAM!NYC, the New York Chapter of Women, Action & the Media.

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